Practical Lycanthropy
by Adverage
Summary: Once you've gotten used to the whole 'giant wolf' thing wolfstime kinda has it's perks. Belle/Ruby. Quick fluff Oneshot.


This is an interpretation of Ruby's lycanthropy made from assumptions built off the canon being that I don't know the ins and outs of turning into a wolf.

* * *

On the library couch Belle shivered.

"Cold?"

Ruby was sorting through books on lycanthropy legends afterhours with Belle's blessing, if was the second day of wolfstime and she had no interest in sleeping.

"This place is just drafty."

It wasn't in Ruby's nature to feel cold, from what she'd read tonight she might blame it on an elevated body temperature or some other 'symptom of her condition.'

"You could head upstairs if you want, I don't want to keep you here all night. I know how to lock up and I'll probably be here awhile."

Belle appeared to be reading her way through the library's fiction section, she had a stack on the table beside the sofa. "So you won't sleep tonight at all?"

"I might, but if I do it'll be as a wolf."

"And what, sleep in the woods?"

"It's much more comfortable than you'd think."

Belle couldn't picture it, recalling the haze of twenty-eight years she had spent on the sparse bunk in the basement of the hospital a queen-size bed was a luxury she had no intention of relinquishing for a good while. An attempt was made to return her focus to the book she was reading but it didn't last for long, Ruby's silhouette, just visible flipping through a book in her periphery was more interesting to her than the passage she'd already failed to comprehend twice.

"So you can control whether or not you…turn?"

Ruby leaned around the shelf, an open book in her hand.

"Now yeah, I can hold it off if I want to but its better if I turn every night of wolfstime. Otherwise it affects me."

"Like you lose control?"

Ruby smiled into the copy of 'The Wolf: Myths and Legends' she didn't mind the explanations, it was something few people knew anything about.

"Much less dramatic, more like a headache and a crappy mood."

Belle was embarrassed by her perceived gaffe, "Oh, of course, I didn't mean to make it seem like I thought you could lose control. I know you've got it all….under control."

She was tripping over her words but meant no harm by them.

"It's okay."

"It's not, I shouldn't be asking about it."

Ruby added the book to the pile she'd built on one of the return carts and stepped away from the shelf, she'd probably already bitten off more than she could chew literature-wise, she had only finished about two of the five books she'd returned earlier that day but was still making excuses to return and check out more. Especially as Belle didn't mind her coming by when the library was empty and always found a reason to hang around until she left.

"Really, it's fine. It's me, the wolf isn't separate, it's all me. Always has been. That's how I can control it and that's why even when it's not wolfstime I can do things."

Belle looked like she was being told a ghost story.

"Do things?"

"The smell thing and my other senses, reflexes and speed and I can lift something like twice my weight."

"You're like Henry's superheroes."

Ruby stopped and looked at her.

"Oh, he came by to check out books and explained to me what comics were, he leant me some."

Belle produced a brightly colored issue or two from between the books in her stack on the end table as if she needed to prove she wasn't lying but it wasn't the comics that had surprised her, 'monster' was a much more common reaction than 'superhero.'

"They all have things like being super strong or super fast."

They had gone from talking about lycanthropy to superheroes as if that were completely normal, as if having the abilities of a children's comic book character was not a terrifying abnormality.

"We should get you a costume." The joke was even accompanied by a sly smirk, like the sight of Ruby in spandex had some appeal beyond the comedic. Belle shivered again and shrugged when she saw Ruby notice.

"Maybe I should get my sweater."

"Don't bother."

Ruby walked around the return cart and felt the wolf, it did not exactly 'appear' having never been absent but instead it's identity, more developed when the moon was full, was there to be claimed. Her processes and thoughts and memories, fused yet made singular by their animalism. She had spent last night in the woods, following smells and hunting rabbits, running for hours in open space and felt her body now as she felt it then. Belle was staring at her, shocked but not afraid. She padded across the library; the pads of her paws feeling cold on the unfamiliar linoleum, aware that her body bigger than it had been moments before. She climbed onto the couch taking up most of it with just enough room left for her to lay her head on Belle's lap. As if it had been planned Belle lifted her arms and Ruby nosed up against her stomach. Ruby could divide every layer of her smell, the books and the soap and the perfume and shampoo, the detergent she used as well as the slight warm smell of her body. Belle put a hand against the ridge of fur along her neck while the other held up her book and burrowed against her elbows and her stomach and the tops of her thighs, Belle's hand moving just slightly near her shoulders (unsure about whether or not it was okay to do the petting thing) Ruby fell asleep.

The next morning Ruby woke up in the same place, less furry but still cradled in Belle's lap who had fallen asleep seated having decided that her queen sized mattress was not as important as she'd thought.


End file.
